Developing an Optimized Design of Bioreactors as In-vitro destructive constructs Used for Investigating Cardiovascular Stents Degradation

Tissue engineering is a powerful approach in developing in-vitro biological substitute constructs especially for cardiovascular applications. Providing inherent mechanical and morphological properties required in vivo condition, is an essential element which must be precisely considered during the in-vitro system designing. Bioreactor is a sample of physiologically simulated system suitable for creating and preconditioning of the cells and tissues in vitro environment. This paper in mainly focused on computer-based designing of a bioreactor as a simulated destructive system for in-vitro analyzing the implemented stent behavior. The system designing was held in CATIA software environment considering several criteria such as dimensions of the fluid input and output channels, complexity in the parts interactions, as well as the fluid flow rate which expected to be very smooth throughout the main chamber. Reynolds numbers for each of the fluid flow were determined such that any turbulence parameter could be avoided during analyzing the stent degradation in-vitro condition. It was concluded that the designed bioreactor with a degradation chamber containing four ۸mm-diameter channels was a reliable system for investigating the stent in-vitro degradation.